Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | I N F O R M A T I O N G O V E R N E N C E 58 A study by Gartner projects the average business will add 35% more data year over year, amounts to storage capacity requirements doubling every 2 years. a viable solution. Remember, IG is about improving information value to an organization while reducing risk and cost. Retaining electronic files indefinitely leads to the challenge of wading through a bottomless pit of data - searches take longer and result in inaccurate hits. The value of these information assets is lost. Retaining too much information increases risk and the opportunity for reputation loss in the event the firm's network is compromised by cyber thieves. Retaining documents beyond what is required can also lead to damaging information brought to light during future discovery. There's a common misconception that data storage is cheap. While it's true that the cost per GB of data is steadily decreasing the explosion of data available to, and retained by, firms is increasing at a significantly faster pace. A study by Gartner projects the average business will add 35% more data year over year, amounts to storage capacity requirements doubling every 2 years. Metajure reported that on average lawyers handled 50% more documents between 2013 and 2015 and it is expected that this will rise with further adoption of electronic means of communicating. Furthermore, approximately 75-80% of business data is duplicate information. The cost per GB for storage hardware is only part of the equation, firms should also factor the cost of expanding IT labor resources and software to keep pace with the growing need to manage information assets. Two methods can be employed for developing your firm's retention schedule. First is the DIY approach, whereby the IG professional or Records Manager researches retention requirements using the Code of Federal Regulations. This is a laborious undertaking and consideration must be given to all jurisdictions in which a firm operates. For ease of managing these schedules, it is often a best practice to select the maximum retention for a given record type that applies across a firm's footprint. The proposed schedule must be vetted, typically by General Counsel. The second approach is to utilize a 3rd party that specializes in this field and employs attorneys who research retention regulations. For a fee, such organizations will manage the research and development of your customized retention schedule and feed this into an online database, which is updated as regulations change and can be easily searched by record series for reference. These databases are typically equipped with a review and approval workflow that tracks when schedules are adopted and updated, along with sign off by those designated with review and approval rights. With either approach, annual refresh of retention schedules should be conducted at a minimum. Technolo Stack Keeping track of digital files across a firm's email application, document management system, review database, trial presentation software, network share drives, and so on can seem daunting. Applications do exist that facilitate compliance by connecting these disparate storage locations, such as enabling the migration of legacy email to DMS, where it can be managed by the Records Management System according to retention. Network crawl tools are also available to auto purge files that haven't been accessed in a period of time, as outlined in IG policy. Bear in C H - C H - C H - C H A N G E S : I G S A Y S I T ' S T I M E T O M A K E A C H A N G E . B U T H O W ?

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